Did the Toronto Star, BBC and other major media cover a scandal involving Canadian politician Jagmeet Singh that supposedly "erupted" after he left his microphone on while on TV? No, that's not true: Searches for coverage of this supposed money-making scandal on these news sites led to no results. The post on X that said this linked to a fake website that imitated the Toronto Star site. This fake website no longer exists. The Canadian political party that Singh heads, the New Democratic Party, told Lead Stories that there are "malicious" scam posts using images of him and other "prominent figures."
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on August 12, 2024. It said:
SPECIAL REPORT: NDP leader Jagmeet Singh's political career is over after money-making scandal erupts live on air 👇https://phoenixbrickltd.com
This is what the post on X looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Aug 13 19:04:39 2024 UTC)
The fake article the post linked to had been taken down while this fact check was written. The archived version of the article, however, can be seen here:
(Source: https://phoenixbrickltd.com/ screenshot taken on Tue Aug 13 19:04:33 2024 UTC)
The website, phoenixbrickltd.com, mimicked the home page of Toronto Star, the Toronto area's daily newspaper. The site displayed an image that made it appear that the story had aired on CTV. A teaser above the story claimed that Huffington Post and the Canadian news outlets Calgary Herald, The Spec, The Globe And Mail and The Province had also published the story.
The post on X also contained a link "From bbc.com" that supposedly led to the BBC, but now also leads to phoenixbrickltd.com. The phoenixbrickltd.com website was no longer live, as of August 16, 2024. Lead Stories found a copy of it on another website, https://digestoperation.com/flow-can/.
In reality, none of these cited news outlets reported the claim touted in the post on X. A search on Google News (archived here) produced no relevant results. Google queries for each media outlet's website also led to no results: BBC (archived here), Toronto Star (archived here), Calgary Herald (archived here), Huffington Post (archived here), The Spec (archived here), The Globe And Mail (archived here), The Province (archived here) and CTV (archived here).
The real Toronto Star website has a significantly different layout from the page linked to on the post on X. Although the fake article looks similar to a real one, it was missing under its headline the date the article was posted and the estimated reading time. The fake article's Subscribe Now and Sign In buttons at the top right of the website did not redirect to anything, while the other sections' buttons all linked to an unrelated page of the website pretending to be Toronto Star.
(Source: https://digestoperation.com/flow-can/ screenshot taken on Fri Aug 16 18:35:01 2024 UTC)
The CTV images were taken from an interview on CTV between Singh and CTV host Vassy Kapelos that was posted on CTV News' YouTube channel on June 6, 2023. The screenshot from this video has been digitally altered to show a different headline. Here is what the original footage from CTV looked like:
(Source: YouTube screenshot taken on Tue Aug 13 21:13:21 2024 UTC)
In an August 16, 2024, email, New Democratic Party (NDP) National Director Lucy Watson provided the following statement to Lead Stories:
The NDP is aware of malicious spam using images of prominent figures, including Jagmeet Singh. We are taking steps to address the fake posts.
No reports could be found of the Canadian federal government accusing Singh of "crimes against society," as the made-up article suggested. Lead Stories also contacted the party in power, the Liberal Party of Canada, by email for comment, and will update this fact check as appropriate if a response is received.
The false Toronto Star report focused on cryptocurrency investment, telling readers they could make money within minutes or a few hours -- a common promise for online investment scams.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks that mention Canada can be found here.
